Daylight saving time year-round ... If the Russians can do it, so can we

If George W. Bush did anything worthwhile as president, it was extending daylight saving time (DST) for an extra few weeks. Now the Russians have gone him one better—much better. They are extending DST for the whole year.

On Sunday, Russian clocks sprang ahead for the last time. The country is now on summer time permanently. President Dmitry Medvedev claimed the time changes caused "stress and illnesses" and "upset the human biorhythm." From a more scientific standpoint, geography professor Arkady Tishkov, a member of the working group that advised cancelling the biannual changes, said they created a number of problems including disruption of sleep patterns, aggravation of chronic diseases and increased traffic accidents. "During the period of the clocks changing, the number of heart attacks increases by 50 per cent and the number of suicides by 66 per cent," he said, "Crime will also drop when the clocks are not put back in October because thieves are less active during daylight hours."

The British group Lighter Later wants to go even further, adding an hour throughout the year plus changing the clocks in spring and fall to get yet another hour for the summer months (sort of like Saskatchewan with DST). Their argument is for more sunshine when people are awake to enjoy it as well as the environmental benefits from reduced electrical use. In Queensland, Australia, advocates for permanent daylight saving time have even formed a political party—Daylight Saving for South East Queensland—that seeks a referendum on the issue.

I, too, would like more light when I'm awake and doing stuff. I freely confess to a bias. I have always been a late-night, late-morning person, something my retirement has given me full opportunity to enjoy; nonetheless, I am confident most Canadians, suffering through our seemingly interminable winters, would prefer a little more light in the evening at a cost of a little less in the morning. Anyway, let's ask them. Let's take a page out of Daylight Saving for South Queensland's book, and hold a referendum. My bet is a sweep for DST year round.

I'd like to vote, but my conscience objects

So we are to have yet another election. On May 2nd we will have the opportunity to exercise our democratic franchise. We will have the opportunity as free and equal citizens to elect representatives to govern us. Well, actually, we won't. If I were to cast a vote, for example, it would count the same as it has for the last many federal elections I've voted in—absolutely nothing. It would elect no one to represent me. Voting will, therefore, be a waste of my time, so I am not going to bother.

I have always voted in the past. A close friend has consistently asked me why, seeing as it has never helped elect anyone to carry my views to Ottawa, and I have consistently come up with some vague justification about performing my democratic duty, about how so many people elsewhere lacked the right, etc. My reasoning increasingly seemed to sound like my mother telling me why I should eat my vegetables when I was a kid. "Children in China are starving," she used to say, "they would be grateful for those peas." Of course me eating my vegetables made not the slightest difference to Chinese kids. Similarly, me voting in a federal election won't make the slightest difference to who represents Canadians in Ottawa.

I already know who will win in my constituency and by how much. Lee Richardson, Conservative, will win by between 15 to 20,000 votes. Lee is a nice enough fellow, and probably a good representative—if you're a Conservative. But I'm not. Lee and I disagree on probably 19 issues out of 20, so he doesn't represent me in any meaningful way. And my vote will not help elect anyone who does. It should, but it doesn't.

The reason it doesn't is because of our shabby electoral system. A democratic system would ensure that every vote counted and that it counted equally in electing someone who represented the individual voter's views. This could easily be done. There would, thank god, be no need to amend the constitution. There are many electoral systems that ensure each vote contributes to the election of a legislator who meaningfully represents the voter. The federal government need only choose a system that best fits Canadian circumstances—and proportional systems can be tailor-made to fit a wide range of circumstances—and legislate it into effect.

Until that happens, I will feel that if I vote I am participating in a fraud, acting as if my vote counts, being told it counts, when in fact it doesn't. Democracy means political equality—every citizen has the same power in electing his or her representative. Our antiquated first-past-the-post system betrays that equality. It deprives me, and millions of other Canadians, of their democratic right.

This should be unconstitutional and may very well be. A case winding its way through the courts in Quebec which will probably wind up in the Supreme Court is challenging the constitutionality of first-past-the-post. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the courts will rule that to be meaningful under Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms there must be a strong (I'm thinking at least 95 per cent) correlation between the popular vote and representation in the House of Commons. If the case is successful, I may finally get to cast a meaningful vote in a federal election.

In the meantime, I will continue to support Fair Vote Canada and hound the political parties to promote a democratic voting system. But vote? No point.

Bertrand Serlet (father of Mac OS X) leaves Apple

In one of those curious twists of fate, when Apple fired Steven Jobs in 1985, it couldn't have know that this would lead to the salvation of the company. Jobs formed another company, NeXT, to build a new computer with which he hoped to beat Apple to death. Joining his team from Xerox was a French-educated computer scientist named Bertrand Serlet. When Apple, on the brink of bankruptcy, acquired NeXT in 1996 to build a new Mac operating system, they acquired as well Jobs and Serlet.

The latter turned out to be the company's saviour. His was the main brain behind Mac OS X, which not only powers Apple’s Mac computers, but the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as well, all huge money-makers for Apple.

Now Serlet is moving on. A day before OS X turned 10 years old, he announced he was departing Apple. "At this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,” he explained. All Mac users, of which I am one—I've never owned another computer—owe Serlet a big thank you. Apple's loss will be science's gain.

The U.S. destroys one Arab dictator's air force while it builds another's

While the Americans join in the destruction of Muammar Gaddafi's air force, they mount a major effort to build up the Saud family's air force. Strange are the ways of American diplomacy.

As part of a $60-billion arms deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon is planning to bring dozens of Saudi pilots to an air base in Idaho to train them to fly the 84 new F-15E Strike Eagles—advanced fighter aircraft—that the Saudis received in the deal.

So many questions spring to mind: Why is the United States, a freedom-loving nation, honing the instrument a family of dictators will use to maintain their power? Why are the Americans training the very men whose ruler may call upon to kill their own people? Why do the Americans keep arming those who may be their future enemy? Do they not realize that if the Sauds' are overthrown—and that is probably only a matter of time—the United States could face a new, hostile regime armed with U.S.-trained pilots flying U.S.-made planes?

There are two obvious answers to these questions of course: oil and money. The Sauds, unlike the unpredictable Gaddafi, have been reasonably reliable providers of oil to the U.S. And conversely, the Sauds have been major buyers of American arms. Interestingly, three Idaho politicians who strongly opposed the building of an Islamic cultural centre two blocks from ground zero in New York, congressman Mike Simpson and senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, are all in favour of bringing the Saudi pilots to their home state. The Saudis are paying for the required enhancement of the air base and the influx of the Arabian pilots, support staff and their families will bring a lot of revenue to Idaho. Oh, what a difference a dollar makes.

And then there's just ideological ignorance. Retired air force officer Edmund O'Reilly, president of the local chapter of the Military Officers' Association of America opined, "From a military standpoint, I think it's an awesome thing for the free world forces." Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most oppressive dictatorships, and probably its most misogynistic, is now part of the free world?

Not all Idahoans, or all Americans, are so sanguine, however. Some have pointed out that it was mostly Saudis trained to fly in the United States who flew planes into the twin towers. To date, most of the outrage has been expressed by conservatives, but if there is a bright side to this folly, it may be that here at last is an issue that American conservatives and liberals can unite on.

Suicide bombers—why do they do it?

Why do suicide bombers do what they do? Not for religious reasons apparently. According to political scientist Robert Pape and defense policy analyst James Feldman in their book Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It,  it is the result of foreign military occupation, not religious extremism. According to Pape, who has studied suicide attacks for 30 years, “What over 95 per cent of all suicide attacks since 1980 have had in common is not religion but a specific strategic objective: to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists consider their homeland or prize greatly.”

Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, works from a database of over 2,000 incidents to analyze recordings that bombers left behind, information about their religious affiliations and socioeconomic status, and other personal details. He notes that prior to 2003, the year the Americans invaded Iraq, fewer than 15 per cent of such attacks around the world were directed against American interests. Since 2003, 92 per cent have been aimed at U.S. targets.

In Afghanistan, there were fewer than 15 suicide attacks from 2003 to 2005, but the number rose to 87 in 2006 and 128 in 2007. According to Pape, the rise was the result of the arrival of  international forces in increasing numbers.

In Lebanon, there were 30 suicide attacks between 1982 and 1986, including a truck bomb that killed 241 U.S. Marines. The number of attacks declined as foreign troops left the country—first the United States, then France, then Israel. Since Israel’s military withdrawal in 2000, there has not been a single Lebanese suicide attack.

“Foreign occupation," says Pape, "is the trigger for suicide terrorism much like smoking is the trigger for lung cancer.” It appears that if the U.S. wants to put an end to suicide attacks against its interests, it should simply stop occupying other people's countries. And our government's argument we are in Afghanistan to protect Canadians against terrorism would seem to be a bit threadbare. But then we knew all that, didn't we?

Saudis send a message in Bahrain

While the West moves to use force against Muammar Gadhaffi, Saudi Arabia marches into Bahrain. The goals, however, are not quite the same. The West supports the Libyan rebels desire for democracy and freedom, the Saudis motives are likely less noble. The Saudis are no doubt unnerved by the threat the massive protests pose to the power of the Al Khalifa family who have ruled Bahrain for over two hundred years. The Saud family, with a lot shorter pedigree than the Al Khalifas, are looking over their shoulders at the demand for democracy in the Middle East with its threat to absolute power and can hardly be amused.

Invited by the Al Khalifas, and under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council, hundreds of troops from Saudi Arabia and police officers from the United Arab Emirates have poured into Bahrain, marking the first time Arab nations have intervened in another country's affairs amid the current unrest in the region.

Not only do the protests in  Bahrain threaten royal power but they threaten Sunni power. The Al Khalifa monarchy represents a Sunni tyranny ruling over a population 70 per cent Shia. The Saudi monarchy, also Sunni, faces only a minority Shia population but a population that is becoming increasingly restive.

So the Sauds have good reason to send a message in Bahrain: the tsunami of revolution sweeping across the Middle East will not be allowed to reach the shores of Saudi Arabia. And, given the military hardware the West has put in their hands, they will no doubt be able to enforce that message—for a while.

Peaceful revolution the most successful

At at time when the world is comparing the outcome of violent revolution in Libya to the outcome of peaceful revolution in Egypt, it may be worth examining which approach has the best chance of success. Actually, that examination has already been made. A study by Erica Chenoweth, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and Maria J. Stephan, a strategic planner at the U.S. State Department, showed that "major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns." The study, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” suggests two reasons for this:

First, nonviolent methods offer a campaign greater legitimacy, both domestically and internationally. This offers broader recognition of the group’s grievances and translates into greater support, internally and externally, and greater alienation of the target regime, undermining the regime’s political, economic, and even military power. In Ms. Chenoweth's words, "People don’t have to give up their jobs, leave their families or agree to kill anyone to participate in a nonviolent campaign. Such movements tend, therefore to draw a wider range of participants, which gives them more access to members of the regime, including security forces and economic elites, who often sympathize with or are even relatives of protesters."

Second, while regimes can easily justify violent reaction against armed insurgents, violence against nonviolent movements is more likely to backfire. Oppressive regimes need the loyalty of their bureaucracy and military to carry out their orders. Violent resistance reinforces that loyalty, while civil resistance undermines it. Potential sympathizers, at home and abroad, see violent militants as having extreme goals, but they perceive nonviolent resistance groups as more accommodating, thereby enhancing their appeal and the possibility of concessions through negotiation.

The study compared the outcomes of 323 violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006.

The strategies and tactics of dissent will will always depend to some extent on circumstances, of course, but it is encouraging to know that civil resistance is much more effective than the uncivil kind. Give peace a chance, indeed.

From the GDP to Norway's Index of Nature

A number of indexes have been suggested—some written about on this blog—to replace the GDP as a measure of societal well-being. The GDP is not a measure of a nation's health, after all—only of its national income—yet it continues to be used in the more general sense as a gauge of how well a society is doing. More meaningful, and less dangerous, indexes include the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). Now, Norway has come up with a yardstick to measure the health of the natural environment—the Norwegian Nature Index.

Based on 309 indicators covering nine major habitats, the index was designed "to provide an overview of the state and development of biodiversity in the major ecosystems in Norway." According to Vivian Pharis, director of the Alberta Wilderness Association, the Nature Index "will help Norway to halt deforestation, complete its parks system, protect fresh and marine waters and to build a model for global biodiversity monitoring." The latter is of particular importance in a world facing the worst rate of species extinction since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago.

The index will not be a yardstick for the overall health of a society, of course, but it will measure a critical aspect of that health—the state of  the environment—and as such make a valuable complement to indexes such as the GPI and the CIW. It could be a first step toward officially placing a value on "free" services such as insect pollination and forest growth that make a huge contribution to the economy.

A recent UN report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, estimated that damage to natural capital from wetlands to coral reefs totals $2-4.5-trillion every year, losses not included in GDPs. Norway plans to follow up the UN report with a review of the value of services provided by nature in Norway. The work could lead to a radical shift in the way we view economics. Ultimately, of course, our entire economy depends on nature directly or indirectly.

Although various countries use bioindicators to assess nature, few have attempted to aggregate their indicators into a single index as Norway has done. Bravo to the Norwegians.

Conservatives create a project that could actually reduce crime

Progressives despair at the federal government's emphasis on tough law and order measures to reduce crime, particularly spending oodles of money on building more prisons for more and longer incarcerations. On the bright side, the Alberta Conservative government has created a program that will incur a modest cost but offer major potential for reducing crime and saving youngsters from wasting their lives on anti-social behaviour.

The government has established the Alberta Vulnerable Infant Response Team to assist at-risk Calgary families with babies. The team will consist of Children and Youth Services caseworkers, nurses and police officers and will offer intensive guidance and support for the first three months of a child's life. The initiative was in response to a significant increase in the city of infants reported to be at risk of neglect and abuse.

That criminals are the product of dysfunctional homes is well-known. Interventions that assist young mothers in proper parenting have been shown to pay off many times over with reduced crime and by the productivity, including payment of taxes, of young people who were steered onto the right path. Better socially and economically, for the individuals involved and society generally, to have people working and paying taxes rather than languishing, at the taxpayers' expense, in prison. A penny of prevention is worth thrupence of cure.

The team will work with parents to teach parenting skills and provide addiction and family violence counseling. The program, to be followed by a similar initiative in Edmonton, will cost $1-million, about the cost of keeping one man in prison for a dozen years.

Limiting assistance to children under three months seems unduly restrictive, but it's a start. These are the kind of programs that will significantly reduce crime. If the federal government is interested in protecting the public and not just in revenge, it should take notice.

Europe moves toward a Robin Hood (Tobin) tax

In 1972, Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin suggested a currency transaction tax to be leveled on all spot conversions of one currency into another. He intended the tax to penalize currency flipping, thereby modifying currency volatility. In his words, "National economies and national governments are not capable of adjusting to massive movements of funds across the foreign exchanges, without real hardship and without significant sacrifice of the objectives of national economic policy with respect to employment, output, and inflation." In other words, currency speculation undermined the democratic process.

Since then, the idea of a Tobin tax has grown well beyond Tobin's original intention of "putting a brake on foreign exchange trafficking." The global justice movement promotes application of a tax on financial transactions as a means of generating revenue for the fight against global poverty and protection of the environment. A means, in other words, to allow governments, i.e. citizens, to reclaim part of the democratic space that global trade agreements have conceded to markets. Thus the Tobin tax becomes the Robin Hood tax. You can read much more about this at http://robinhoodtax.org/. The idea is that, due to the vast number of financial transactions in today's globalized world, a tiny tax on such transactions could generate large amounts of revenue for the public good.

The Robin Hood tax campaign has now received a boost from the European Union. Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted in support of a financial transactions tax on banks. They estimate the 0.05 per cent levy on financial transactions will raise  $270-billion a year. The Members want Europe to press ahead unilaterally with the tax to discourage speculative trading and to raise money to protect public services, fight global poverty and tackle climate change. The vote is not binding, so the challenge now is to get national governments on board. A number already are, including France who chairs the G20 this year. The German, Austrian and Spanish governments are also in support.

This bold move by the European Parliament has put paid to the argument that nothing can happen without global agreement and sets a global standard for pressing ahead with action on the banks. An idea, as they say, whose time has come.

Egypt - a revolution for men?

The Egyptian revolution has captured the hearts and minds of freedom and democracy-loving people around the world. The largely peaceful overthrow of a tyrant with the hope of establishing a democracy is inspiring. It will be less inspiring, however, if it turn out to be a revolution for men only.

Women were in the forefront when the people took to the streets. But now that the tyrant has packed his bags, women, it seems, are being pushed aside. When the military selected a 10-member committee to make constitutional reforms, they selected not one woman. When a new cabinet was sworn in earlier this week, it contained only one woman. Particularly disturbing to many Egyptian women is the return of sexual harassment in the streets, a practice for which Egyptian men are notorious but which seemed to be suspended during the protests. All of this surrounding international women's day is not encouraging for the women of Egypt.

The new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, has announced the creation of a committee to deal with the advancement of women, which is all well and good but does nothing for women now. As one woman remarked, "It's like saying you women can have your little committee while we men do the serious business."

Women nobly set their struggle for gender equality aside while they fought for the political and social rights of all Egyptians.What a betrayal it will be if their political and social rights are now set aside by men.

Globalization and the race to the bottom in Wisconsin

The globalization of economics as we have come to know it is revealing itself rather dramatically in Wisconsin. It has ravaged the market for well-paying blue-collar jobs in the U.S., reducing the wages and benefits of middle class Americans in the bargain. Now right-wing politicians are exploiting the wreckage to slash the wages and benefits of public sector workers. It's called the race to the bottom.

The race does not, however, include the corporate sector. Just as politicians like Wisconsin governor Scott Walker use the new global order to justify union-bashing, they use it also to justify cutting taxes for corporations, citing the need for ever more investment. Ah, the symmetry of global capitalism!

Now don't get me wrong. I support globalization. I support the breaking down of barriers. But what we have seen isn't globalization, it is—for lack of a better word—corporatization. It is drawing up agreements that advance the interests of corporations, particularly in their relentless search for cheap labour, while dismissing or even undermining the interests of workers, the environment and democracy generally. For example, under NAFTA American corporations are free to seek out cheap labour in Mexico but Mexican workers are not free to seek out high wages in the United States.

The theory of corporatization is that we will all benefit ultimately by trickle-down from the prosperity of corporations. As workers in Wisconsin are finding out, there isn't much trickling going on.

A humane globalization would ensure that the rights of workers and respect for the environment were internationalized no less than trade. If tariffs were not allowed to protect a country's industries, neither would the exploitation of workers nor the abuse of the environment. But such is not the case. Blue collar jobs in places like Wisconsin can be farmed out to the coerced labour mills of China, dragging American wages down in first the private sector, then the public. It is a sad spectacle to see a noble idea—globalization—corrupted into a vehicle for exploitation and the undermining of human rights.

Not so conservative times in U.S.

After the November elections in the U.S. swept Republicans into power in the House of Representatives and a number of state legislatures and governorships, to say nothing of the exuberance of the Tea Partiers, one might have thought Americans were swinging hard to the right. The Pew Research Centre begs to differ. In a recent survey, the prominent research group revealed some intriguing drifts toward moderation in our southern neighbour.

• Opinion on gay marriage, still strongly opposed only a few years ago, is now evenly split.
• Support for the view that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has recovered from a low in 2008, and is now at 54 per cent as opposed to 42 per cent who think it should be illegal.
• Support for legalizing marijuana has continued to increase to 45 per cent, closing in on the support for maintaining its illegality which has dropped to 50 per cent.

As the graphs below indicate, some significant trends in American attitudes are clearly moving in a progressive direction. Encouraging stuff.
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Americans strongly support public-sector unions

While various governors and legislators of various American states exploit state budget deficits to do some union-busting, Americans at large remain staunchly supportive of public-sector unions. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, most Americans not only oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public-sector unions but also oppose cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits.

The support is  convincing. Respondents opposed weakening public-sector union rights by a margin of almost two to one (60 per cent to 33 per cent). Even among Republicans the margin was nearly 50-50. Opposition to cutting the pay or benefits of civil servants to reduce deficits was also strongly opposed—by a margin of 56 per cent to 37 per cent. Sixty-one percent of those polled, including just over half of Republicans, thought the salaries and benefits of most public employees was either “about right” or “too low,” directly contradicting those politicians who have been making the case that public-service workers are overpaid or have overly generous benefits. The disagreement extended to dealing with budget deficits: raising taxes was twice as popular as benefit cuts for state workers.

This strong support by the American people for both civil servants and unions is encouraging. Aside from worker co-operatives, unions are the sole component of democracy in the workplace. If we are to have a democratic society, self-governance must inform all public institutions, not just government, and to many citizens, the most important institution is their workplace. Americans likely support public-sector unions for various reasons—fair play, respect for the work they do, etc.—but one hopes also because they support democracy.

The Tea Party splits Republicans

One of the intriguing aspects of the Tea Party phenomenon in the United States is not how Tea Partiers' views depart from those of most Americans but how they depart from those of most Republicans. A recent survey by the Pew Research Centre showed that on a wide range of federal spending issues, including education, the environment, health care and energy, non-Tea Party Republicans agreed much more closely with Democrats than with their Tea Party colleagues.

On the environment, for example, 68 per cent of Tea Party Republicans felt the federal government should spend less whereas only 23 per cent of non-Tea Party Republicans felt that way as did only 12 per cent of Democrats. There was a particularly sharp divergence on education, with only 26 per cent of Tea Partiers believing the feds should spend more compared to 64 per cent of non-Tea Party Republicans and 78 per cent of Democrats. On Social Security and Medicare, Tea Partiers favoured less spending rather than more by a ratio of two to one while non-Tea Partiers, like Democrats, strongly favour more spending.

The Tea Partiers are loud, greatly aided and abetted by the shouters on Fox News of course, but not all that convincing apparently with only 43 per cent of Republicans supporting them. Perhaps because their tale, to quote Macbeth, is one "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Calgary 5th most livable city in the world?

I suppose I should feel flattered. According to The Economist, I live in the world's fifth most livable city—Calgary. Furthermore, of the top ten most livable cities, three are Canadian: Vancouver is number one, as always, and Toronto number four. Nice to see the Economist thinks so highly of us, but I admit to a certain skepticism.

I feel quite attached to my home town—I choose to live here, after all—but is it really more livable than Montreal? And, according to the ranking, the top city in the U.S. is Pittsburgh (29th overall). Pittsburgh? Not New York or San Francisco?

And most suspiciously, out of the Economist's top ten, eight are in English-speaking countries. The other two are European—Vienna and Helsinki. Only two out of the ten most liveable cities in the world are in Europe? None in, for example, Japan? That impressively prosperous, clean, crime-free nation?

The Economist Intelligence Unit analyzes 30 factors to establish its rankings, including stability, health care, culture, environment, education, infrastructure and personal safety. Sounds thorough enough, but the results seem curiously biased.

Oh, and the least desirable city in the world to live in? Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Thank you, Mr. Mugabe.

U.S. vetoes its own policy

The United States, we are led to believe, is opposed to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. If this is indeed the case, we are left wondering why it vetoed a UN resolution last Friday that would have condemned illegal settlements beyond the Green Line and demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building. American opposition to the resolution was underlined by President Obama spending an hour on the phone with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Thursday urging him to block the resolution. Needless to say, he failed.

The U.S. was alone its veto. The 14 other Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution, reflecting the broad support for the Palestinian-backed draft which had about 130 co-sponsors.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice insisted the United States did not want the veto to be "misunderstood" as support for continued Israeli settlement construction. "For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region," she said. "Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace."

If that is truly the American position, then Ambassador Rice needn't worry that Obama's humiliating plea to Abbas and the American veto will be misunderstood. They will be clearly understood for what they are: another example of the Israeli tail wagging the American dog.

One might be sympathetic to Obama. Israel probably has more influence in Congress on this issue than he does. Rallied by the Israeli lobby, House leaders from both parties had been putting pressure on Obama for weeks to veto the resolution. So it is understandable that Obama genuflects to Israel. Nonetheless, it is sad to see the president embarrass himself, and it is even sadder to see American foreign policy driven more by donors than diplomats.

Quantifying climate change with the aid of citizen science.

Although we know we are causing climate change, we have only understand the results in a general way. We knew it would cause more extreme weather but not how it related to any specific event. Sea levels rise, dry areas get dryer, wet areas get wetter and so on. Climate effect we could determine, weather not so much. Now scientists are zeroing in on local weather events. Using sophisticated computer models, British researchers have estimated that global warming made the floods that devastated England and Wales in 2000 two to three times more likely to happen. The leader of the work, Myles Allen of Oxford University, had a particular incentive—his home was one of those flooded. That year the U.K. experienced its wettest autumn since 1766, the year record-keeping began.

This advance in climate science has great potential. It should, for example, aid in lawsuits against major polluters. According to barrister Richard Lord QC, a British expert on climate litigation, "Showing that the chance of an event occurring has increased by say 100% or 200% gives you a much better chance of showing causation. It gets you around one of the legal obstacles." Lord suggested such lawsuits, already being attempted in the U.S., could be used if countries are unable to establish international regulations adequate to control greenhouse gas emissions and the damage they cause—a whole new world of making polluters pay.

Running the models, simulating actual weather versus what it might have been without  greenhouse gas emissions, is enormously demanding of computer time and therefore potentially very expensive. The researchers got around this problem by soliciting the assistance of hundreds of thousands of volunteers and their computers. Citizen science, so to speak. Taking advantage of the Climateprediction.net project, they used 40,000 years of computer time donated by members of the public.

"Climateprediction.net," in its own words, "is a distributed computing project to produce predictions of the Earth's climate up to 2100 and to test the accuracy of climate models." If you would like to get involved, and you have spare capacity on your computer, go to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ to get the BOINC software and choose (from among many projects) to attach to the Climateprediction.net site. The models will then run quietly in the background. Letting your computer do the work while you barely lift a finger, you can become a citizen scientist and make a significant contribution to dealing with climate change, humanity's biggest challenge.

Egypt's revolution and China's drought—a frightening connection

The Egyptian revolution has captured the world's attention like few events in recent years. Where, the world wonders, will it lead? Another event, receiving rather less attention, may help answer that question.

China is facing a massive drought, the worst, Chinese authorities believe, in 60 years, in some parts of the country in 200 years. China has long been self-sufficient in grains, but a third of the wheat crop is now threatened. This could mean China entering the world market, and China has enough currency reserves to outbid just about anybody. If this happens, the price of wheat, already up 35 percent since mid-November, could soar.

And what does this have to do with Egypt? A great deal actually. As China is the world's largest producer of wheat, Egypt is the world's largest importer. The Egyptian revolution, like the Tunisian, is driven in no small part by the high price of food. With the Chinese in the world market, that problem could be greatly aggravated. Even if the revolutionaries gain their major goal, the implementation of democracy, they may not be able to resolve one of the greatest grievances of the Egyptian people. Above all else, people need food. If neither dictator nor democrat can provide it, what then? Chaos?

The world should be praying for rain in China. If it doesn't come, revolutions in the Middle East may intensify and spread well beyond that part of the world. Booting out a few corrupt dictators may prove to be the easy part.

American science teachers reject science

Evolution is about as much a fact as we can know a fact, and if you don't understand evolution, you can't understand life on Earth. That is why the U.S. National Research Council recommends teachers describe in a straightforward way the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.

American teachers are, it seems, largely ignoring the advice. A recent survey showed that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the Council's recommendations. Thirteen per cent advocate creationism thereby, according to the federal courts, violating the First Amendment to the Constitution. The other 60 per cent simply avoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor creationism, even though creationism is faith, not science, and there are about as many creation theories as there are peoples.

If American science teachers are having trouble with evolution, we can't help but wonder how they are doing with the big science question of today—climate change, another inconvenient truth that attracts irrational denial. Anther survey is in order.

Symbols, the immigration guide, and Canadians' love of Medicare

Not only do Canadians love their health care system, they consider it the most important symbol of Canadian identity. So says a recent Environics survey. They ranked it above the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the RCMP, the flag and all other contenders.

This is not what the new guide for immigrants, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, would have us believe, or rather have our new citizens believe. In its list of Canadian symbols, it overlooks Medicare. (The first symbol mentioned in the guide is the Crown, a symbol the Environics survey ranked last.) Indeed, the guide never uses the word anywhere and mentions our health care system in only one sentence.

The Environics survey result is consistent with other surveys that show when Canadians are asked what gives them pride in their country they rank health care fourth after our democracy, our quality of live and our caring/humanitarian outlook. Health care also figures largely, of course, in quality of life and a caring/humanitarian outlook.

One could reasonably argue that if you don't recognize the importance of Medicare to Canadians, you can't understand Canadians. And yet our guide for immigrants essentially dismisses it. Hardly a proper introduction to this country.

Why Israel should support democracy for its neighbours

That Israel should be suspicious of democracy for its Arab neighbours is not surprising. The Arab peoples harbour a deep hostility toward Israel, both for its colonial imposition on the area and its treatment of the Palestinians. Consequently, any Arab government that legitimately represented its people, i.e. a democratically-elected government, could be expected to reflect that hostility. Israel, therefore, prefers to deal with tyrants.

Former Israeli foreign minister Moshe Arens once said, "Peace you make with dictators," believing that only strongmen could end conflict and guarantee security. This may work in the short term, but if Israel wants security in the long term, it will have to come to terms with 80 million Egyptians, or at least a solid majority of them, not just with one man, no matter how powerful he is. Relying on a dictator just identifies him with Israel, increasing hostility toward both. One of the chants heard on the streets of Cairo this past week has been, "Mubarak, go back home to Tel Aviv."

Living with a democratic Egypt would present a challenge for Israel but, on the other hand, democracies are much more stable and much less likely to invade their neighbours than dictatorships. Israel and its friends crushed the result of the 2006 election in Palestine, and that has hardly brought greater security to Israel or peace to the region. All it did was expose the hypocrisy of Israel's friend's claims to want democracy in the Middle East.

Israel has itself been a model of democracy. Its oppression of the Palestinians and its antipathy toward democracy for its neighbours does it no credit. Both its principles and its long-term security demand better. A good start would be welcoming democracy in Egypt.

Anglicans and gay fights

You can find just about any view you want on homosexuality among the clergy of the Anglican Church. In Britain, the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, urges the government to offer protection to gay and lesbian people seeking asylum in the U.K. His urging follows the murder of a prominent gay rights activist in Uganda last week, an event magnified in Britain by the threatened deportation of a Ugandan lesbian, Brenda Namigadde. Namigadde insists she will be tortured or killed if she is sent back to Uganda and claims most of her friends in that country have disappeared.

Meanwhile in Uganda at the funeral of the murdered activist, as if to justify Namigadde's fears, Anglican pastor Thomas Musoke shocked the gay men and women present, as well as the foreign diplomats in attendance, by launching into a homophobic tirade. Police had to escort him away.

Somewhere in between these extremes is the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, the Most Rev Henry Orombi. Orombi has been outspoken in his opposition to homosexuality, gay clergy and same-sex marriage, yet opposes a bill before the Ugandan parliament that would imprison homosexuals for life.

The British people have come to accept that gays should be treated equally and the Anglican Church, reluctantly perhaps, follows their lead. In Uganda, the mob wants gays persecuted and the Church, with less reluctance perhaps, responds accordingly. The Church it seems, rather than preach eternal truths, on this issue at least just follows the trend. And this is no bad thing. In the case of gay rights, people generally seemed to have arrived at a compassionate conclusion well ahead of the Church. It seems they have done a better job of tapping into the teachings of the gentle Jesus than his self-appointed interpreters.

Alberta submits to home builders association on energy

In  2008, the Government of Alberta stated its intention to “implement energy efficiency standards in building codes for homes and commercial buildings” as part of its climate change strategy. Technical reports showed that  higher energy efficiency standards would result in net savings for homeowners in every year of ownership. A 2010 poll showed strong support from Albertans for stronger standards. Nonetheless, the Government has abandoned its plans to increase energy efficiency requirements in its Building Code and instead wait for the next version of the National building Code.

Why, one might wonder, would a government abandon an energy-conserving initiative that was supported by both technical experts and the general public? Well, not everyone is in support—the home builders association, for example. And According to the Minister of the Environment, government won't proceed with an interim building code as long as the home builders association is opposed.

To understand the clout home builders have with the Alberta government, you have to understand the province's political funding. In 2009, corporations contributed almost as much to the Progressive Conservatives as all the other parties combined raised from all contributions. And which industry is the major contributor, you ask? If you guessed the oil industry you would be wrong—it's the development industry. So if the home builders say no, it's no.

But then rolling over for industry is par for the Alberta government. He who pays the piper ...

Conservative magic - turning political antipathy into government antipathy

A recent article in Harper's magazine contains some intriguing insights into the relationship between Americans and their government. Americans would seem to be utterly disillusioned with their federal government these days. The right insists it is too big and taxes them too much, the left insists it is too cozy with corporations and too militaristic. Fifty years ago, 70 per cent of Americans said they trusted their federal government. Today that has been reversed: when a recent Gallup poll asked Americans what they thought of it, 72 per cent of the replies were pejorative.

But are Americans unhappy with government? Other statistics suggest otherwise. For example, when asked about particular services provided by the federal government, whether it be Social Security, Medicare, the military, the Postal Service, the Centers for Disease Control, NASA, education or highways, Americans show strong support. So what is going on here? Do Americans hate government or love it? The Harper's article suggests the answer is probably both. They love government services, but politicians not so much.

Republicans exploit this disenchantment with politicians, i.e. with them, to justify downsizing government as a whole. A clever trick, and it seems to work, at least among a portion of the electorate. An amusing example was evident at a town hall meeting held by Rep. Robert Inglis. A retired gentleman righteously warned Inglis to, "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." At a Tea Party rally protesting federal spending, when a reporter reminded an elderly lady that the federal government provided her Social Security, she thought for a moment, then smiled and said, "Maybe I'm at the wrong rally." Indeed.

Most Americans won't be fooled by the Republican sleight of hand, but with a little help from media rabble-rousers and well-heeled corporations, enough can be fooled to win an election. If the Democrats want to regain control of the House, they might start by removing the confusion between politics and services that Republicans so cleverly exploit.

Creeping democracy in China?

When we think of China, about the last thing we think of is democracy. We think of clothing, toys, electronic gear, and damn near every manufactured good on sale in the stores these days, but we don't think of democracy. Yet, according to an article in the Guardian, democracy may be creeping into the Chinese way of life.

China has more elections than any other country, but up until recently these elections meant little or nothing. They were local elections manipulated for the purposes of the Communist Party. Now, however, according to the article, these elections have been growing more competitive, with more independent candidates and greater use of the secret ballot. Furthermore, where there is real competition, the elections seem to be having positive effects. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has indicated elections may be extended to townships, the next political level.

The Chinese have also experimented with direct democracy. China hired Stanford University professor James Fishkin, the guru of deliberative polling, to select a scientifically-representative sample of citizens from the city of Zeguo for a citizens' assembly to decide how their city should spend a $6-million public works budget. The project was considered a huge success and repeated elsewhere. This is an exercise we could profit from ourselves.

Even the Communist Party is getting in on the act with competitive elections being held for party posts at the lower levels.

Some Chinese intellectuals are proposing models of democracy based on Confucian ideas, i.e government service based on merit, possibly in combination with Western models. One proposal is for a tricameral legislature with the legislators of one chamber selected by merit, the legislators of another elected by members of the Communist Party, and the legislators of the third elected by the Chinese people as a whole. Some observers have been so bold as to suggest the Chinese might ultimately develop a model superior to those of the West.

That, however, will take a long time. But then the Chinese have always taken the long view of history. I'm reminded of the famous story of former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai who, when asked what he thought the influence of the French Revolution was on history, replied: "It's too early to tell."

Guess who is warning of increasing greenhouse gas emissions

"Rising greenhouse-gas emissions pose significant risks to society and ecosystems. Since most of these emissions are energy-related, any integrated approach to meeting the world’s growing energy needs over the coming decades must incorporate strategies to address the risk of climate change."

Nothing new in those remarks you might say and you'd be right. But what is new is who made them. ExxonMobil no less. In its annual Outlook on Energy report, the energy giant is warning that society is facing the challenge of addressing "the societal and ecological risks posed by rising greenhouse gas emissions." It predicts that global carbon emissions will rise by 25 per cent in the next 20 years, a projection gloomier than those publicly expressed by many scientists and governments, and one that douses optimism that runaway climate change can be prevented.

Beyond 2030, the report says, any progress on cuts will require "more aggressive gains in energy efficiency as well as the use of less carbon-intensive fuels. New technologies will by then be essential." This is no surprise to most of us but strong stuff for ExxonMobil.

Not long ago it was one of the most influential deniers of climate change, engaged in intensive lobbying efforts against the Kyoto protocol, running ads that questioned the scientific basis for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and as late as 2008 funding organizations dedicated to undermining climate science. Now the leopard seems to be changing its spots.

It may have been encouraged by a shareholder revolt in 2008. That year, members of the Rockefeller family, descendants of the founder of the company, were scathing in their criticism of the company's policies. "There are an awful lot of people who are getting increasingly annoyed with Exxon," said Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a great-granddaughter of John D, while accusing the company of "an inability to listen to outsiders and an assumption that they know all the answers." The Rockefellers were joined in their dissent by 19 major institutional shareholders, including public investment funds from California, New York, Illinois, Maine and Vermont, the United Methodist Church, and the AFSCME public employees' union. All backed resolutions calling on Exxon to appoint an independent chairman and to set up a task force tackling global warming.

Whether convinced by shareholder outrage or by science or by simply recognizing what's best for the company's long-term interests, ExxonMobil seems to be accepting the reality of the climate change threat. ... Finally.

Iran goes for hanging record

Iran isn't a leader in many things, but no one tops it in hanging. Iran executes more people per capita than any other country, and in absolute numbers is second only to China. Last year the numbers dropped to 179 from 388 in 2009, but this year is off to a record start. In the first three weeks of 2011 the mullahs have already executed 47 of their citizens. It looks like a banner year for the hangman.

Iran has a long history with hanging. It is credited with being the first country in the world to adopt the practice 2,500 years ago. Even the Bible records a hanging in ancient Persia, when King Ahasuerus hanged Haman for plotting against the Jews (Esther 7:10).

Most of this year's hangings are for drug-related crimes although some are politically motivated as well. Aaron Rhodes, a spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, accused the Iranian judiciary of being, "on an execution binge orchestrated by the intelligence and security agencies."

The fact that Iran is a theocracy, a government guided by religious principles, might lead one to believe it would set a high standard for respecting human life. But that would be naive. The victims of righteous religion are legion. God is a hard taskmaster, as the Bible and the Koran make eminently clear, and those who deem themselves to be in His service must therefore be hard taskmasters as well. At least that's what the mullahs seem to believe.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

The adage "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" is being nicely illustrated by U.S. House of Representatives Peter King, new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. King says he intends to hold hearings on the radicalization of young Muslims in the United States.

The American Muslim community is not, to say the least, amused. Abed A. Ayoub, legal director for the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, accused Mr. King of "bigoted intentions" while pointing out that Muslim leaders around the country have been working closely with law enforcement officials since 9/11.

The irony of King's crusade against Islamic extremism is that he was once a stalwart supporter of the IRA. Speaking at a pro-IRA rally in New York in 1982, he said, “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry." At the time, he was involved with NORAID, an organization that the British, Irish and US governments accused of providing the IRA with weapons. The same man who complains that "no American Muslim leaders are co-operating in the war on terror" once refused to condemn IRA terrorist attacks in the UK.

Terrorism, it seems, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

We are all tribal - oxytocin makes us so

We are all tribal. Or, as social scientists would say, ethnocentric. This is, of course, old news. Observing the way humans loyally attach themselves to their groups, whatever those groups may be founded on—race, religion, country, profession, favourite hockey team, whatever—while exhibiting suspicion of other groups, makes it clear we are tribal creatures. Us and them kind of creatures.

What is new is that scientists have now identified a hormone that makes us that way—a tribal hormone. It's called oxytocin and it's the same hormone, produced in the hypothalamus region of the brain, that does everything from urge rat mothers to nurse their pups to make people trust each other more. But it doesn't inspire our warm and cuddly urges toward all others. In an article published in Science magazine, scientists report that the love and trust it promotes are only directed toward one's own group. It is, as a New York Times story puts it, "the hormone of the clan, not of universal brotherhood ... it is the agent of ethnocentrism."

It does not, however cause aggression toward the other, just defensiveness against them. In the words of the Science article, "Oxytocin drives a 'tend and defend' response in that it promot[es] in-group trust and cooperation, and defensive, but not offensive, aggression toward competing out-groups." That, at least, is a relief.

A principal author of the study, Carsten K.W. De Dreu, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, states, “In the ancestral environment it was very important for people to detect in others whether they had a long-term commitment to the group. Ethnocentrism is a very basic part of humans, and it’s not something we can change by education. That doesn’t mean that the negative aspects of it should be taken for granted.” No, to say the least, they should not be taken for granted. In a complex society, it often doesn't matter whether you are actively discriminating against others or just favouring your own, the result is equally harmful.

The important thing to understand is that we are all prejudiced in favour of our group and against the outsider. We can't help it—it's in our genes. What we can help is what we do about it. We can allow it to foster mistrust and hostility toward those who are different from us, or we can keep it in its place, apply the better parts of our minds, and treat others with unfailing kindness and respect. In other words, we can include everyone in the tribe.

That is the choice: submit to the dark side of the love hormone and intensify our tribalism, as we do in sports and in the military, or extend the good side to include others. Which we choose is the measure of our morality.

Why is the Human Rights Museum creating an atrocity contest?

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has already initiated its fair share of controversy. The generous funding from all levels of government (over 20 million federal dollars a year will be expended just to maintain it) has exercised some taxpayers who are becoming even more apprehensive as escalating construction costs bump the final tab from $260-million up to $310-million.

As if a financial row wasn't enough, the museum has put the human rights cat among the ethnic pigeons by declaring that only the Holocaust and the Native American displays will have permanent galleries of their own. They should have known that by giving preference to the suffering of two groups, they would be met with challenges from other groups who have suffering of their own to relate. They are, after all, human rights specialists, they must know this much about human nature. And, of course, the challenges are coming.

In December, The Ukrainian Canadian Congress expressed concern that the museum has no plans to have a full exhibit to mark the Holodomor, a genocidal famine that took place in 1930's Ukraine, even though the Holodomor will be displayed permanently in the "Mass Atrocity" zone. The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association is calling for an independent committee to decide what content will be featured in the museum. The German-Canadian Congress has said it is “alarmed and concerned” about the museum’s dedication of permanent galleries to Holocaust and Canadian aboriginal issues. Congress president Tony Bergmeier calls on the museum to be “inclusive and equitable in its treatment. … No suffering by one group can be more important than the suffering of others.”

The choice of the aboriginal display for a gallery of its own can—arguably—be justified because that, after all, is where human rights violations started in this country, with the theft of the land from its native peoples. Furthermore, it's a Canadian story and the museum is mandated to place special emphasis on Canadian history.

But why the Holocaust? It wasn't a Canadian story. A case for its priority can be made, but then a case can be made for the Atlantic slave trade which cost millions of lives and massive suffering, went on for almost four hundred years, dramatically changed the histories of four continents and the effects are still strongly felt today. No doubt, good cases could be made for other atrocities. And probably will be.

The kind of me-tooism generated by the museum's decision is, to say the least, unbecoming. Unfortunately, unless the choices for permanent galleries are made on objective and clearly established criteria, it is inevitable. The best approach would be to follow the lead of the other 10 galleries which are based on themes. Place the Holocaust and Native American displays in their appropriate theme areas rather than suggesting, as the museum now does by allocating them galleries of their own, that they alone are as important as all other injustices of their kind. This way they could still be preeminent in their respective theme areas but without acrimony. And the museum could do with a great deal less acrimony.

When will the growing income gap become a major political issue?

A recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, authored by Armine Yalnizyan and entitled "The Rise of Canada's richest 1%," considers an issue that, despite its very great importance to this country, receives remarkably little attention. That issue is the reversal of long-term trends toward income equality after 1980, i.e. the growing income gap. While average family incomes stagnate, the incomes of the rich rapidly rise.

The report points out that the richest one per cent of Canadians took about a third of all income growth in both the slow-growth decade 1987-1997 and the fast-growth decade 1997-2007, i.e in good times and bad. This was the largest slice in history. The share of all Canadian income that went to the richest one per cent had dropped to 7.7 per cent in 1977. It is now up to 14 per cent and increasing.

From 1998 to 2008, Canada's 100 best-paid CEOs' compensation rose from 104 times the average Canadian's to 174 times, representing a 53 per cent increase after inflation compared to the average Canadian's four per cent.

The higher up the income ladder you are, the faster your income rises. The income share of the richest .01 per cent of Canadians more than quintupled. To quote the report, "Canada's elite are breaking new frontiers in income inequality." This record-breaking growth is combined with the lowest top tax rates since the 1920s.

One thing the report clearly shows is that rewarding CEOs with ever greater incomes does not enrich the rest of us. The trickle-down theory has proven to be a fraud. A rising tide is not raising most boats.

The importance of the income gap is not simply about money and a fair share, but about the overall health of society. Inequality is a comprehensive social problem. Evidence increasingly shows that unequal societies are unhealthy societies. This is thoroughly illustrated in epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better in which they graphically show that rates of heart disease, crime, drug abuse, obesity, mental illness and other social ills depend on relative levels of wealth within societies. If we are concerned about all of these issues, we should be concerned about the growing inequality.

The need for a debate is obvious. The challenge is how to have the debate when our public forums—the mass media—are controlled by the very same one per cent who are benefiting from the inequality. The media moguls are hardly interested in a debate that might challenge their privileges.

Religion flaunts its nasty side in Israel

When bigotry starts to lag, you can always count on religion to give it a shot in the arm. In early December, 40 municipal chief rabbis in Israel signed a letter in support of a ruling by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu instructing his followers not to offer accommodation to non-Jews. The rabbis didn't allow their status as public servants (their salaries are paid out of the public purse) to preclude their mischief-making.

Not to be outdone by their menfolk, rabbis' wives have now gotten in on the act. The wives of 27 prominent Israeli rabbis have signed a letter of their own urging Jewish women not to date or work with Arab men. The not dating is one thing, but the not working with is something else. Do they think their young women will get pregnant from drinking at the same water fountain as Arabs? No chances are to be taken it seems to prevent the defiling of the flower of Jewish womanhood by Arab seducers.

An array of Israelis have expressed outrage at these sentiments, including top political leaders, the prime minister and the defence minister among them. Ordinary Israelis are not so righteous however. A recent poll showed that 44 per cent of Israeli Jews support the rabbis' ruling banning the renting of apartments to non-Jews.

Actually, if the rabbis and their wives are so concerned about Jewish purity, they should welcome their young women mixing it up with Arab boys. After all, their Semitic blood has been diluted by 2000 years of miscegenation with Europeans. Intermarriage with their fellow Semites would restore them to a purer Semitic state. Sounds like win-win to me.

The Denisovans enter the human story

I would greet the latest addition to the human family with a hearty hello; unfortunately they are all dead. Thirty thousand years dead, in fact. Scientists announced that the remains of a finger discovered in the Denisova cave in the Altai mountain range of southern Siberia belong to a previously unknown human ancestor. They believe that the undocumented human species lived alongside Neanderthals and modern humans as recently as 30,000 years ago.

The Denisovans join Homo floresiensis, or the "hobbits," a diminutive species of human discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003. Although some scientists persist in the belief that the hobbits were in fact Homo sapiens with a brain-shrinking disease, the evidence increasingly suggests they belonged to a different human species that shared the planet with us up until 13.000 years ago.

We humans are a lonely species, with only one of our kind left on Earth. Most creatures have many species, even thousands. It appears that not all that long ago in evolutionary terms, we too had rather more company, with perhaps four of our kind roaming the planet: Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis, and now Denisova hominim.

One is intrigued by these ancient relatives of ours. What were they like? How did they pass their days? What happened to them? Did we, in our characteristic savagery, exterminate them? We have exterminated so many other species, why not a few of our own? We will never be able to answer many questions about them, but I wish the scientists great success in increasing our knowledge about these distant cousins.

Shame on Apple

As a long-time fan of Apple (the only computers I have ever owned are Macs, including my current iMac), I was more than a little disappointed to hear the company had joined the corporate mob attempting to suppress WikiLeaks. Earlier this week, it pulled a WikiLeaks application from its iTunes store. And this isn't the first venture into censorship by the company. Apple has also banned apps with political cartoons and gay travel guides, leading the Guardian newspaper to observe that "many magazine publishers developing 'apps' for the new iPad... have had to self-censor."

As for pulling the WikiLeaks app, Apple explained, "We removed WikiLeaks because it violated developer guidelines. An app must comply with all local laws. It may not put an individual or target group in harm's way." What nonsense. WikiLeaks hasn't been convicted of breaking any laws and the release of the diplomatic cables has caused no loss of life. In fact, WikiLeaks has released the material quite responsibly. By channeling it through respectable newspapers like the Guardian and The New York Times, it has combined its ability to gather vast amounts of data with the editing and reporting skills of the conventional media. Names, locations and dates that could put people at risk have been carefully redacted.

Strictly speaking, the WikiLeaks app did violate the store rule that apps enabling donations must be free and this one was not (it cost $1.99). However, Apple could have gotten around that simply by insisting the app be given away. Instead, it banned it permanently.

What next, one wonders, will Apple and its corporate friends like Amazon, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal be up to? Suppressing the Guardian and The New York Times? This is not one of Steven Jobs finer moments.

I would hate to stop buying Apple, but for the very first time I'm having doubts. And, fortunately, I can still get WikiLeaks on my browser.

U.S. Senate offers a Xmas present to the world

Yesterday, the United States Senate voted 71-26 to ratify the new strategic nuclear arms treaty (New START) with Russia. New START, in addition to establishing a system for monitoring and verification, limits the two countries to 1,550 nuclear warheads each, down from the current 2,200. Considering that between the two to them, the U.S. and Russia possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, this is of global importance.

It is also a small step toward the two nations fulfilling their responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which requires them to rid themselves of nuclear arms. So at this holiday time, let us be grateful for small mercies.

To the U.S. Senate, a merry Xmas and a happy New Year.

Ivory Coast - a democratic riddle

Everyone it seems, agrees that Laurent Gbagbo should step down as president of Ivory Coast. The UN, the African Union, the United States and the EU are all in agreement that his opponent in the recent election, Alassane Ouattara, should now assume the presidency. Considering that Ouattara won by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, they have a point. Gbagbo, unfortunately, demurs. And considering he controls the Constitutional Court (which insists, contrary to international observers, that Gbagbo won the election), the state television channel and the army, he has to be taken seriously.

If this were simply a matter of another African strongman refusing to give up power, and that may be partly the case, it would be a straightforward issue. But there is more to it than that. Ivory Coast is part of a swath of Africa from west to east that contains countries with Muslim populations in the north and Christian populations in the south. And therein lies the problem. Gbagbo is a Christian southerner and Ouattara is a Muslim northerner.

If we think strictly in numbers, then Gbagbo must go. But democracy is about more than numbers. Democracy is about representation. And, since Ivorians voted strongly along ethnic and religious lines, we can assume the southerners don't believe their interests can be represented by a northerner. If that is the case, does Gbagbo have a point? Is the result democratic if the south is to have imposed on it a president inimical to its interests?

We have a certain experience with this in Canada. The perception that certain prime ministers favoured Quebec caused rumblings of secession here in Alberta. And rumblings of secession are heard constantly in Quebec rising in part from distrust of les maudits anglais.

Fortunately, our trust in each other has overcome our suspicions, as it must if democracy is to work in a pluralistic society. Perhaps this trust has simply not developed in Ivory Coast, in which case democracy simply by numbers may be unworkable. This suggests two possibilities: Ivory coast can follow the path taken by Sudan, i.e. hold a referendum on splitting the country in two, or it can develop some kind of power-sharing agreement to keep both north and south reasonably content.

The latter has been the Canadian approach to Quebec's yearning for independence. We established structures that allowed Quebec sufficient autonomy to feel comfortable within the union. Of course, Quebec has also tried the referendum on secession approach, but there was enough trust in the union—barely—to prevent a breakup. Accommodating Quebec has caused grumbling in the rest of the country about a tyranny of the minority; nonetheless, the system has worked for over 140 years, longer than most countries have existed. Perhaps there are some lessons here for Ivory Coast.

There is of course a third approach—a return to civil war until one side is battered into submission. This may work in the long run, as it has in the United States, but it can cause horrific tragedy in the short term, also as it did in the United States, and there are no long-term guarantees. I doubt either the international community or the Ivorians want to take this route. Although maybe Gbagbo does.

Perhaps the greatest risk here is that the international community will impose a "democracy" on Ivory Coast—in the name of Alassane Ouattara—that is no real democracy at all for half the people. This may do nothing more than provide Laurent Gbagbo with more justification for bloody-mindedness. The UN et al. should, therefore, sponsor a democracy that has real meaning for Ivorians north and south. This is clearly a major challenge for the international community. It requires a Lester Pearson moment. The alternative is yet more misery for West Africa.